To:RICHARD MÜLLER AND HEINRICH MALZAHN

Published:First published in 1959 inLenin Miscellany XXXVI.

      Printed from the original.

      Translated from the German.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1976,

      Moscow,Volume 45,

      page218b.Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet ArchiveYou may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

20/VII.1921.

ComradesRichard Müller
		    and Heinrich Malzahn

DearComrades:

Iwas able to read your letter of 18/VII only
today.[1]I have spoken with Comrade Heckert on the question you
raised only ones and quite briefly. When he asked what
I thought about it, I told him that I was too inadequately
informed to judge, that those expelled should of course be
organised in some way, and thatin this senseHeckert’s
proposalseemsto be correct.

Thatis all.

Iknownothingabout “unions”, or the tactless actions
of individual Communists (which made expulsion easier
for the social-traitors).

Theresolution adopted by the congress (which you have
sent me) tells me that the unions arenotapproved
(“insignificant”, “diffuse”, “sow confusion”). The practical
slogan is: “Do not pull out more workers’ groups from the
centralised free unions.”

Whatis there to be said against it?

Moreover,you yourselves hope to secure control of the
unions.

Ishall send your letter to Comrades Lozovsky and
Zinoviev, to obtain fuller information.

Withcommunist greetings,Lenin

[1]Aletter sent to Lenin by Richard Müller and Heinrich Malzahn,
members of the German trade union delegation at the First
International Congress of Revolutionary Trade Unions (July 1921),
over the resolution of the congress on the organisational question
relating to the trade unions in Germany.

Followingits establishment, the United Communist Party of
Germany set up communist groups in a]l the trade unions. In an
effort to isolate the Communists from the trade union
membership, the trade union bureaucrats expelled leading Communists
and some local organisations in toto.